White House ‘may try to gag Comey’

THE White House is re­view­ing whether to in­voke ex­ec­u­tive privilege to prevent for­mer FBI di­rec­tor James Comey from tes­ti­fy­ing be­fore a con­gres­sional panel this week.

Comey is sched­uled to tes­tify be­fore the Se­nate In­tel­li­gence Com­mit­tee about his May 9 fir­ing by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump. The panel is in­ves­ti­gat­ing Rus­sian med­dling in the 2016 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and whether the pres­i­dent or his as­so­ciates were in­volved.

Asked if the White House might in­voke ex­ec­u­tive privilege, press sec­re­tary Sean Spicer told re­porters: “That com­mit­tee hear­ing was just no­ticed, and I think ob­vi­ously it’s got to be re­viewed.”

A sec­ond White House of­fi­cial con­firmed that the is­sue is un­der re­view. — Bloomberg